Had she looked like that when she had swept Owen away? Was it an easy, an everyday thing to her, to see men swept away? He tried to beat down the visions that assailed him, but again and again, on the rising surge of the “Sapphische Ode,” they returned. Owen sitting before her, as he now sat, in the pale, fresh, shaded room; Owen rising suddenly to take her in his arms.—There would be no surprise to her in that.—She would have seen it coming. “You mean that it was your fault, then?” Giles muttered. “No. I do not mean that,” madame Vervier answered, and as, in speaking, she weighed her stone lightly up and down, her eyes on his, he felt that it was his heart rather than her own guilt she weighed so in her hand.—How often she had weighed men’s hearts! How conversant with their trembling must she be! “No; that is not what I meant.—He moored his boat at the edge of a torrent. That was all. He was swept away,” madame Vervier repeated. “That was what Alix said of you,” Giles muttered again. He felt as if madame Vervier must see the throbbing of his heart. “What Alix said of me?” “That you were like a mountain-torrent. She wanted me to understand you. She thought I might be of help to you some day. She thought of you, poor child, as in some kind of danger; beautiful and in danger.—How can you say it wasn’t your fault?” Giles demanded, and, with the thought of Alix and what she hoped from him, he felt that he struggled to keep his footing. “If you carried him away, it was your fault.—I believe that’s what you live for; to carry men away,” he heard himself unbelievably uttering, and it seemed to him, as the sombre magic of her eyes dwelt on him that it was for Owen he was speaking, and for all the others; since now he understood them all. Madame Vervier, after he had said these last words, contemplated him in silence. For a long time she said nothing, and Giles, in the silence, felt that their confrontation was altered in its quality. When she spoke at last, it was not in anger. It was, rather, with a strange mildness. “I do not overflow my banks, ever,” she said. “You must not launch your boat upon me; that is all.” If he had found himself understanding them all—all those others—was it possible that she saw him merely as one of them? Was she warning him? Had she seen his need of warning? Giles felt his face growing hot. “You must not launch your boat upon me,” madame Vervier repeated, observing him with grave but faintly ironic kindliness. “If I am a torrent, if I am dangerous, to myself and others, my nature is there as it was given to me. I may not alter it. The blame lies with those who are unwary.” “That may be true,” Giles muttered. “I have nothing to do with you, of course. I don’t understand you. But I do understand my brother. His weakness doesn’t excuse him.”